Black Widowers

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The Black Widowers is a fictional men-only dining club created by Isaac Asimov for a series of sixty-six mystery stories that he started writing in 1971. Most of the stories were first published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine , though a few first appeared in Fantasy & Science Fiction , Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine , and the various book collections into which the stories were eventually gathered.

Isaac Asimov American science-fiction and non-fiction writer

Isaac Asimov was an American writer and professor of biochemistry at Boston University. He was known for his works of science fiction and popular science. Asimov was a prolific writer who wrote or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards. His books have been published in 9 of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification.

Mystery fiction genre of fiction usually involving a mysterious death or a crime to be solved

Mystery fiction is a genre of fiction usually involving a mysterious death or a crime to be solved. Often with a closed circle of suspects, each suspect is usually provided with a credible motive and a reasonable opportunity for committing the crime. The central character will often be a detective who eventually solves the mystery by logical deduction from facts presented to the reader. Sometimes mystery books are nonfictional. "Mystery fiction" can be detective stories in which the emphasis is on the puzzle or suspense element and its logical solution such as a whodunit. Mystery fiction can be contrasted with hardboiled detective stories, which focus on action and gritty realism.

Short story work of literature, usually written in narrative prose

A short story is a piece of prose fiction that typically can be read in one sitting and focuses on a self-contained incident or series of linked incidents, with the intent of evoking a "single effect" or mood, however there are many exceptions to this.

Contents

Asimov wrote "there are few stories I write that I enjoy as much as I enjoy my Black Widowers." [1]

Synopsis

Most of the stories follow the same basic convention: the six club members meet once a month at a private room at the Milano restaurant at Fifth and Eighteenth in New York. [2] Each one takes a turn to act as host for the evening and brings along a guest for the occasion. The guest may be a friend, relative or colleague from work (women are not allowed [3] ). The meal is served by the incomparable waiter Henry Jackson — almost invariably referred to as simply Henry — whom the regulars look upon with high regard and even consider an actual member. The room includes sketches of the guests drawn by Black Widower Mario Gonzalo and a bookcase with an encyclopaedia that is often consulted. [4]

New York City Largest city in the United States

The City of New York, usually called either New York City (NYC) or simply New York (NY), is the most populous city in the United States. With an estimated 2018 population of 8,398,748 distributed over a land area of about 302.6 square miles (784 km2), New York is also the most densely populated major city in the United States. Located at the southern tip of the state of New York, the city is the center of the New York metropolitan area, the largest metropolitan area in the world by urban landmass and one of the world's most populous megacities, with an estimated 19,979,477 people in its 2018 Metropolitan Statistical Area and 22,679,948 residents in its Combined Statistical Area. A global power city, New York City has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world, and exerts a significant impact upon commerce, entertainment, research, technology, education, politics, tourism, art, fashion, and sports. The city's fast pace has inspired the term New York minute. Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy.

After the main course, the brandy is served and the host rattles his spoon on his water glass for silence. One of the other Widowers is appointed as "griller" and begins the questioning, most often by asking the guest to "justify his existence". In the course of the subsequent conversation, it always comes out that the guest has a problem, varying from personal issues to problems at work to actual crimes. The club members try to solve the problem, raising various related aspects in the course of the conversation, but are unable to come to a conclusion or resolution. In the end, it is Henry who provides the correct, and usually very simple, answer, obtained from details mentioned in the conversation. Asimov intended them to always follow that pattern. [5]

Brandy spirit produced by distilling wine

Brandy is a spirit produced by distilling wine. Brandy generally contains 35–60% alcohol by volume and is typically drunk as an after-dinner digestif. Some brandies are aged in wooden casks. Others are coloured with caramel colouring to imitate the effect of aging, and some are produced using a combination of both aging and colouring. Varieties of wine brandy can be found across the winemaking world. Among the most renowned are Cognac and Armagnac from southwestern France.

Asimov uses the stories in order to delve into aspects of science, history, culture and other interests: for example, Goldbach's conjecture in "Sixty Million Trillion Combinations"; Gilbert and Sullivan in "The Year of the Action"; and the origins of the name "Susan" in "The Intrusion".

Goldbachs conjecture Conjecture that every even integer greater than 2 is the sum of two primes

Goldbach's conjecture is one of the oldest and best-known unsolved problems in number theory and all of mathematics. It states:

"Sixty Million Trillion Combinations" is a short mystery story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the May 5, 1980, issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, and reprinted in Banquets of the Black Widowers (1984) and The Return of the Black Widowers (2003). Asimov originally entitled it "Fourteen Letters", but the magazine's title was kept in subsequent uses of the story. The story is one of a collection of short mysteries whose characters are based loosely upon the Trap Door Spiders, a stag-club of which Asimov was a member.

Gilbert and Sullivan Victorian-era theatrical partnership

Gilbert and Sullivan refers to the Victorian-era theatrical partnership of the dramatist W. S. Gilbert (1836–1911) and the composer Arthur Sullivan (1842–1900) and to the works they jointly created. The two men collaborated on fourteen comic operas between 1871 and 1896, of which H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance and The Mikado are among the best known.

Origins

The Black Widowers were based on a literary dining club Asimov belonged to known as the Trap Door Spiders. [6] Members of the Widowers were based on real-life Spiders, some of them famous writers in their own right: [6]

The Trap Door Spiders are a literary male-only eating, drinking, and arguing society in New York City, with a membership historically composed of notable science fiction personalities. The name is a reference to the reclusive habits of the trapdoor spider, which when it enters its burrow pulls the hatch shut behind it.

Club waiter Henry Jackson was not based on a real person, but Asimov explained that he might have been inspired in large part by Wodehouse's immortal character Jeeves. [6] Asimov was a P. G. Wodehouse fan and a member of the Wodehouse Society. [7]

The deceased founder of the club, Ralph Ottur, on whom the plot of the story "To the Barest" turned, was based on the real-life founder of the Trap Door Spiders, Fletcher Pratt. [8]

Some guests were also based on real people. The stage magician The Amazing Larri ("The Cross of Lorraine") was based on James Randi, [9] while the arrogant science writer Mortimer Stellar ("When No Man Pursueth") was based on Asimov himself. [6]

Books and stories

The first five books each contained twelve stories; in each case, nine stories were first published in various magazines while three were first published in the book. As was usual with Asimov's collections, many stories had chatty forewords or afterwords. The sixth book, published posthumously, contained six previously uncollected stories, eleven reprinted from previous collections, and additional material by Charles Ardai, William Brittain and Harlan Ellison.

A few Black Widowers tales have been written by other authors as tributes to Asimov. One is "The Overheard Conversation" by Edward D. Hoch, which appears in the festschrift anthology Foundation's Friends (1989); another is "The Last Story", by Charles Ardai, in The Return of the Black Widowers (2003).

The books and the stories collected in them are:

Related Research Articles

See also: Isaac Asimov bibliography (categorical), Isaac Asimov bibliography (chronological)

<i>Murder at the ABA</i> book by Isaac Asimov

Murder at the ABA (1976) is a mystery novel by American writer Isaac Asimov, following the adventures of a writer and amateur detective named Darius Just, whom Asimov modeled on his friend Harlan Ellison. While attending a convention of the American Booksellers Association, Just discovers the dead body of a friend and protégé. Convinced that the death was due to murder, but unable to convince the police, Just decides to investigate on his own.

Donald Roynald Bensen, known also as Don Bensen and listed sometimes as D.R. Bensen, was an American editor and science fiction writer. As an editor he is known best for editing works of P. G. Wodehouse and his involvement with their re-issue as paperbacks in the United States. As an author, he is known best for his 1978 humorous alternate history novel, And Having Writ..., published first by Bobbs-Merrill company.

<i>Tales of the Black Widowers</i> book by Isaac Asimov

Tales of the Black Widowers is a collection of mystery short stories by American author Isaac Asimov, featuring his fictional club of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in June 1974, and in paperback by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books in August 1976. The first British edition was issued by Panther in 1976. The book has also been translated into German.

<i>Banquets of the Black Widowers</i> book

Banquets of the Black Widowers is a collection of mystery short stories by American writer Isaac Asimov featuring his fictional club of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in September 1984, and in paperback by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books in June 1986. The first British edition was issued by Grafton in August 1986.

<i>Casebook of the Black Widowers</i> book by Isaac Asimov

Casebook of the Black Widowers is a collection of mystery short stories by American author Isaac Asimov, featuring his fictional club of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in January 1980 and in paperback by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books in March 1981.

<i>More Tales of the Black Widowers</i> book by Isaac Asimov

More Tales of the Black Widowers is a collection of mystery short stories by American author Isaac Asimov, featuring his fictional club of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in October 1976, and in paperback by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books in November 1977. The first British edition was issued by Gollancz in April 1977.

<i>Puzzles of the Black Widowers</i> book by Isaac Asimov

Puzzles of the Black Widowers is a collection of mystery short stories by American author Isaac Asimov, featuring his fictional club of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in January 1990, and in paperback by Bantam Books the same year. The first British edition was issued in hardcover by Doubleday (UK) in April 1990, and the first British paperback edition by Bantam UK in April 1991.

<i>The Return of the Black Widowers</i> book by Isaac Asimov

The Return of the Black Widowers is a collection of short mystery stories by American writer Isaac Asimov, featuring his fictional club of mystery solvers, the Black Widowers. It was first published in hardcover by Carroll & Graf in December 2003, and in trade paperback by the same publisher in November 2005.

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The Union Club Mysteries is a collection of mystery short stories by American author Isaac Asimov featuring his fictional mystery solver Griswold. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1983 and in paperback by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books in 1985.

<i>The Best Mysteries of Isaac Asimov</i> book by Isaac Asimov

The Best Mysteries of Isaac Asimov is a collection of mystery short stories by American author Isaac Asimov. It was first published in hardcover by Doubleday in 1986, and in paperback by the Fawcett Crest imprint of Ballantine Books in September 1987.

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"Ph as in Phony" is a mystery short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It was first published in the July 1972 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine under the title The Phony Ph.D. The reason for this title change was that the magazine ran a series by Lawrence Treat with similar "_ is for _" titles. When it was republished in Tales of the Black Widowers in 1974, the original title was restored. It is the second published story about the Black Widowers, a gentlemen's club that solves mysteries based loosely upon the Trap Door Spiders, a stag-club of which Asimov was a member. It was reprinted in the collection The Return of the Black Widowers in 2003.

"The Ultimate Crime" is a short story by Isaac Asimov, dealing with a minor aspect of one of the Sherlock Holmes stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It is the 24th of Asimov's Black Widowers mystery stories, and it appeared in his anthology More Tales of the Black Widowers, which collects the second dozen stories of the series. It was written specially for that book. It subsequently appeared again in Sherlock Holmes Through Time and Space, an anthology of stories written by different authors and co-edited by Asimov, and Another Round at the Spaceport Bar.

In a writing career spanning 53 years (1939–1992), science fiction and popular science author Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) wrote and published 40 novels, 382 short stories, over 280 non-fiction books, and edited about 147 others.

Truth to Tell is a 1972 short story by Isaac Asimov. It is one of Asimov's series of stories about the Black Widowers, a gentlemen's dining club that meets monthly to solve mysteries and puzzles. It was first published in the October 1972 issue of Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine under the title "The Man Who Never Told A Lie", and was included in the 1974 collection Tales of the Black Widowers.

Depending on the counting convention used, and including all titles, charts, and edited collections, there may be currently over 500 books in Isaac Asimov's bibliography— as well as his individual short stories, individual essays, and criticism. For his 100th, 200th, and 300th books, Asimov published Opus 100 (1969), Opus 200 (1979), and Opus 300 (1984), celebrating his writing.

References

Sources
Endnotes
  1. ↑ Asimov, I. Banquets of the Black Widowers, Grafton Books, 1986, page 250.
  2. ↑ The Return of the Black Widowers (2005), p. 279
  3. ↑ The Good Samaritan, published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in September 1980
  4. ↑ The Year of the Action, published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine in January 1981
  5. ↑ Asimov 1994, I. Asimov, chapter "119. Mystery stories".
  6. 1 2 3 4 Asimov 1994, I. Asimov, chapter 120, "The Trap Door Spiders".
  7. ↑ Seiler&Jenkins 2009, "Isaac Asimov FAQ", section 2.10. "Did Asimov do anything other than write all day and all night?".
  8. ↑ Asimov 1980, Casebook of the Black Widowers, "To the Barest - Afterword"
  9. ↑ Asimov 1980, In Joy Still Felt, chapter 41, section 19.
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